Doxastic Research Articles

Dubious pleasures

Abstract My aim is to discuss the impact of higher-order evidence on aesthetic appreciation. I suggest that this impact is different with respect to aesthetic beliefs and to aesthetic affective attitudes (such as enjoyment). More specifically, I defend the view that higher-order evidence questioning the reliability of one’s aesthetic beliefs can make it reasonable for one to revise those beliefs. Conversely, in line with a plausible account of emotions, aesthetic affective attitudes are not directly sensitive to this type of higher-order evidence; they are sensitive only to those features of objects that make such attitudes (un)fitting. Thus, I argue, there are cases of non-defective recalcitrant aesthetic attitudes where the subject has both a non-defective, fitting aesthetic affective attitude and a reasonable belief questioning the fittingness of this attitude. I further discuss whether, in this type of case, the subject has decisive reasons to try to change her recalcitrant attitudes—say by trying to modify her aesthetic affective dispositions. My answer is negative. Even granting that subjects always have aesthetic reasons to try to avoid aesthetically unfitting attitudes, these can be outweighed by further reasons not to do so—perhaps including aesthetic reasons related to the construction of valuable aesthetic identities or to the value of aesthetic engagement.

Why are Epistemic Reasons Normative?

Abstract Normativism is the (controversial) view that epistemic reasons for belief are really, genuinely normative. Normativists might wonder – and anti-normativists might press the question – why, or in virtue of what, are epistemic reasons normative? Borrowing Korsgaard's metaphor, what's the “source” of their normativity? Here I argue that this question is both highly interesting and subtly distinct from other common questions in the literature. I also propose an initial taxonomy of stance-dependent and stance-independent answers, and I advocate a novel, hybrid type of view as ultimately most promising for (mostly) vindicating normativism.

Dissociating visual perspective taking and belief reasoning using a novel integrated paradigm: A preregistered online study

There is considerable conceptual overlap between Level-2 Visual Perspective Taking (VPT-2) and Belief Reasoning; both cognitive processes require us to represent another's viewpoint and experience of reality while inhibiting our own egocentric representations. This study investigated if these facets of mentalising are distinct from one another in the general adult population. To do so, we developed a novel “Seeing-Believing Task” with which to compare VPT-2 and true belief (TB) reasoning directly – one in which both judgement types refer to the same state of reality, requiring identical responses, and where self and other perspectives can be dissociated. Across three preregistered online experiments, this task demonstrated consistent differences between these two cognitive processes; specifically, TB judgements were associated with slower response times than VPT-2. This suggests that VPT-2 and TB reasoning are at least partly distinct psychological processes. Further, the greater cognitive effort required for TB reasoning is unlikely to be explained by differences in mnemonic processing. We suggest, therefore, that VPT-2 and TB reasoning differ in the complexity of social processing involved and we discuss theoretical implications based on minimal vs. full-blown Theory of Mind. Future research must attempt to test these conjectures.

Democratic responsibility in the digital public sphere

Democratic responsibility in the digital public sphere

Democratic faith. A philosophical profile of Richard J. Bernstein

Democratic faith. A philosophical profile of Richard J. Bernstein

Disregarding evidence: Reasonable options for Newton and Rutherford?

To determine whether, and to what extent, you are justified in believing a proposition you need to consider all the relevant evidence available to you, not just some part of it. So says the “Requirement of Total Evidence” (RTE). If you violate this you are unreasonable. Are you? Two scientific cases will be presented to defend the answer: Not necessarily. The first involves Newton's argument for universal gravity, the second, Rutherford's argument for his model of the atom. These cases, it will be argued, show something important about the limitations of RTE and about reasonable belief. At the end a way of rethinking RTE will be proposed.

Applying the Imminence Requirement to Police

In many jurisdictions in the United States and elsewhere, the law governing deadly force by police and civilians contains a notable asymmetry. Often civilians but not police are bound by the imminence requirement—that is, a necessary condition for justifying deadly force is reasonable belief that oneself or another innocent person faces imminent threat of grave harm. In US law enforcement, however, there has been some shift toward the imminence requirement, most evident in the use-of-force policy adopted by the Department of Justice in 2022. This article defends that shift and argues that the ethical case for the imminence requirement in policing is stronger than Shannon Brandt Ford suggests in a recent article. Though the imminence requirement’s impacts on policing and public safety require ongoing study, the principle of equality before the law and the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing both provide moral grounds for this requirement, especially given the lack of evidence that the status quo helps protect life.

正当防卫“合理相信因素”的认定

正当防卫“合理相信因素”的认定

Positive illusion and the normativity of substantive and structural rationality

ABSTRACT To explain why we should be structurally rational – or mentally coherent – is notoriously difficult. Some philosophers argue that the normativity of structural rationality can be explained in terms of substantive rationality, which is a matter of correct response to reason. I argue that the psychological phenomena – positive illusions – are counterexamples to the substantivist approach. Substantivists dismiss the relevance of positive illusions because they accept evidentialism that reason for belief must be evidence. I argue that their evidentialist stance would imply that we are caught in unsolvable dilemmas arising from positive illusions.

On the Origins of Mind: A Comparative Perspective

One of the most fundamental questions in cognitive science pertains to how the mind emerges and develops, that is, what is the origin of mind? In this article we use comparative data to contribute to three important questions about the origin of human and nonhuman minds: ( a) which human psychological traits are ancestral and which ones are derived (i.e., which traits can we assume to be unique to humans), ( b) whether language has a role in developing psychological abilities, and ( c) what the cognitive architecture of animal minds looks like. Based on our selective review, we conclude that ( a) deductive reasoning, rather than relational or belief reasoning, is so far the best candidate for a human-unique derived cognitive ability, ( b) language and symbolic representation are not necessary for the emergence of conceptual and abstract thinking, and ( c) support for a modular cognitive architecture in animals is mixed.

Illness Risk Perceptions and Efficacy Beliefs Among Indonesian in the Course of COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19, a worldwide pandemic, has posed a significant challenge to public health systems worldwide. Health risk perception and efficacy belief are primary constructs influencing individuals' protective behavior due to the outbreak. Our study investigated each item of illness risk perception, efficacy belief, and its related factors concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. An analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among 227 respondents aged 17 to 70. Data collection was conducted using convenience sampling by distributing the web questionnaire between April and July 2020. Mann-Whitney or Kruskal-Wallis bivariate analysis was performed using SPSS version 21.0 to assess the relationship between individual characteristic factors, illness risk perception, and efficacy belief. The study established that respondents had a medium to a high level of illness risk perception and a reasonable efficacy belief in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Region (p=0.027) and occupation (p=0.036) differences were significantly associated with the threat and severity perception, respectively. Smoking history (p=0.037), supplement use (p=0.029), and occupation (p=0.018) differences were significantly associated with self-efficacy. Meanwhile, gender (p=0.045) differences were significantly associated with response efficacy. Therefore, the public's illness risk perception and efficacy belief could be substantial in planning, modifying, and implementing a coordinated response for risk communication in current and future epidemics.

Redefining consent: rape law reform, reasonable belief, and communicative responsibility

AbstractContemporary trends in rape law reform have resulted in the adoption of more affirmative or communicative conceptions of sexual consent across many jurisdictions. Drawing on empirical research conducted by the author in the wake of the 2019 Gillen Review into serious sexual violence in Northern Ireland and proposed changes to the law on consent, this article illuminates the social and cultural norms that inform and complicate the construction and interpretation of consent models. Three broad themes from the primary data are identified: the law's (in)ability to capture the complexity of human interactions, societal ambivalence around consent and rape, and consent confusion. The article concludes by introducing and further developing the notion of communicative responsibility and arguing that it should be used as a prism through which to make sense of the enduring challenges in this area of law and human interaction.

‘I presume she wanted it to happen’: rape, reasonable belief in consent, and law reform in Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland (NI), determinations of whether the crime of rape has occurred require consideration of the accused’s reasonable belief in the complainant’s consent (the ‘reasonable belief threshold’). Drawing on the rich body of feminist scholarship critiquing this threshold, this article makes two core contributions. First, through a thematic analysis of trial transcripts and news reports from the high-profile 2018 ‘Rugby Rape Trial’ in NI, the article illustrates how trial narratives around consent and reasonable belief in consent ‘responsibilise’ the complainant while minimising the (in)actions of the accused. Second, the article evaluates the proposal in the 2019 Gillen Review that this threshold should be reworded to take account of the accused’s failure to take steps to ascertain the complainant’s consent. It is argued that, while this proposal has the potential to subtly redistribute narratives of responsibility, such potential can only be realised through a change in prosecutorial practice to ensure attention to the ‘steps to ascertain consent’ provision.

Causal models versus reason models in Bayesian networks for legal evidence

In this paper we compare causal models with reason models in the construction of Bayesian networks for legal evidence. In causal models, arrows in the network are drawn from causes to effects. In a reason model, the arrows are instead drawn towards the evidence, from factum probandum to factum probans. We explore the differences between causal models and reason models and observe several distinct advantages with reason models. Reason models are better aligned with the philosophy of Bayesian inference, as they model reasons for up-dating beliefs. Reason models are better suited for measuring the combined support of the evidence, and a prior probability of guilt that reflects the number of possible perpetrators is accommodated more easily with reason models.

Much Ado about Nothing: Problems with Logical Reasoning in Theism-Atheism Debate

Atheists feel there is no reason for religious beliefs and that they should only believe things that can be proven logically or by experiments, while theists believe they have enough reason to believe. At some point, the arguments and counterarguments keep going on without coming to a conclusion. This situation always arises when people on opposing sides of a theological dispute employ logical reasoning to establish who is right. In this paper, I argue that proving faith issues through logic is logically flawed, and that faith and reason are linked to different levels of human cognitive faculty. Both the theists and atheists’ arguments concentrate on the second level of human consciousness, where reason operates. At this level, both hypotheses can be supported by reason, so there is no conclusion. Based on the above fact, I suggest that the hypothesis for the theistic-atheistic debate should be human dependence as a religious narrative and human independence as a secular narrative to push the debate forward.

Do I know what they know? Linking metacognition, theory of mind, and selective social learning

Young children are often dependent on learning from others and to this effect develop heuristics to help distinguish reliable sources from unreliable sources. Where younger children rely heavily on social cues such as familiarity with a source to make this distinction, older children tend to rely more on an informant’s competence. Little is known about the cognitive mechanisms that help children to select the best informant; however, some evidence points toward mechanisms such as metacognition (thinking about thinking) and theory of mind (thinking about other’s thoughts) being involved. The goals of the current study were to (a) explore how the monitoring and control components of metacognition may predict selective social learning in preschoolers and (b) attempt to replicate a reported link between selective social learning and theory of mind. In Experiment 1, no relationship was observed across the measures. In Experiment 2, only selective social learning and belief reasoning were found to be related as well as when both experiments’ samples were combined. No links between selective social learning and metacognition were observed in the two experiments. These results suggest that theory of mind is a stronger correlate of selective learning than metacognition in young children. The implications regarding the kind of tasks used to measure metacognition are discussed.

Tedhak Siten: an Islamic-Javanese Acculturation

This study aims to investigate one specific tradition of Indonesia, namely Tedhak Siten as an acculturation of Islamic and Javanese values and practice. The Javanese are the largest ethnic group in Indonesia. Tedhak Siten comprises a series of traditional traditional processions to recognize a stage of childhood when it is the first time a child learns to set foot on the ground. Through a qualitative study, it was found that up to this day, the  Javanese people still hold this ceremony even though it is in the modern era. In addition to reasons of belief, Javanese people are famous for their love for culture or customs handed down by their ancestors. The series of events include walking on colored glutinous rice, climbing stairs made of sugarcane, entering a chicken coop, picking objects, fighting over coins, and taking a flower bath. Each of these rituals has its own meaning and purpose for the future of the child. Although some people claim that Tedhak Siten is not mandatory, some continues to hold this ceremony, and some has abandoned this custom. This indicates that there is shift in the value of a culture or tradition is due to the development of modernization, which then replaces the long-cherished culture.

There are no epistemic norms of inquiry

Epistemic nihilism for inquiry is the claim that there are no epistemic norms of inquiry. Epistemic nihilism was once the received stance towards inquiry, and I argue that it should be taken seriously again. My argument is that the same considerations which led us away from epistemic nihilism in the case of belief not only cannot refute epistemic nihilism for inquiry, but in fact may well support it. These include the argument from non-existence that there are no non-epistemic reasons for belief; the linguistic argument that epistemic norms of belief are needed to capture the semantics of ordinary epistemic talk; and the argument from theoretical roles that epistemic norms are needed to play key theoretical roles for rational belief. I conclude by sketching an alternative Gibbardian picture on which norms of inquiry are all-things-considered norms governing action.

What Has Metaphysics to Do with Wisdom?

What Has Metaphysics to Do with Wisdom? John Haldane There are two loci of ambiguity in the title of the symposium from which this essay derives—"Is Belief in God Reasonable? Aquinas's Summa contra gentiles in a Contemporary Context."1 The first concerns the opening question, "is belief in God reasonable?" and the second the closing clause "in a contemporary context." I observe this not in the spirit of pedantry, but because I want to consider certain interpretations of what is at issue, ones which may be different from those of other contributors but which are relevant to Aquinas's circumstances and interests and to ours. So far as the Summa contra gentiles [SCG] is concerned, I will touch mainly on issues discussed by Thomas at the outset of book I, in chapters 1–15, which deal with philosophical knowledge of first principles and arguments to the existence of God. First, however, the general issue of reasonable belief. I Concerning the first locus of ambiguity, the question of the reasonability of belief in God is multiply interpretable. It may be treated as relative to a subject's other beliefs and attitudes, where that subject e may be an individual or a group. Given that S believes p and q (and these can each be conjunctions of any number of propositions), is it reasonable for S to believe r? This aspect of relative credibility is itself ambiguous because it [End Page 1249] can be viewed narrowly, without regard to the status of those antecedent beliefs and attitudes, or broadly, as also asking whether those are themselves reasonable. In a court setting, for example, it may be asked whether it was reasonable for someone to have believed (or done) something given their antecedent beliefs, but it may well be countered that this is an insufficient standard of reasonability, since the prior attitudes may be incredible, or credible but irresponsibly held. The issue of reasonable belief, foresight and foreseeability are common courtroom examples. In these respects, then, it may be granted by someone A, who holds that believing in God is not reasonable, that it was nevertheless reasonable for S to do so given S's antecedent beliefs. This need not be a matter of condescension, however, since A may grant that the prior beliefs were themselves reasonable for S to hold, and would also have been reasonable by some more objective standard prevailing at the time or in the circumstances. A "rationalist" objector may counter, however, that this is all beside the point, since the question to consider is not the relative, but the absolute one: is belief in God reasonable? Full stop. I agree that there is nothing to be gained by unconstrained relativizing, but if "absolutism" is the implied contrast, it is over-stated. First, if reasonability is related to having (or having access to) reasons, and to the "quality" of those reasons, then some degree of relativity is entailed, and the only standard of reasonability that can be applied is a contextual one. To ask simpliciter whether it is reasonable to believe p carries an unacknowledged implicit reference either to something such as prevailing commonly held beliefs and associated normal cognitive processes or to an idealized thinker with access to relevant proofs or evidence. On further consideration, however, the latter, somewhat like Adam Smith's "impartial spectator" in ethics,2 tends just to be a more abstract version of the contextually reasonable thinker. There is perhaps a step beyond this, namely to the Omniscient Reasoner (OR) but it is a sophistical move, since it amounts to saying that a belief is reasonable if and only if it would be held by someone who knows everything relevant to its justification. which given that we cannot know antecedently the range of relevant considerations, is for us an inapplicably high standard. There is also some irony in asking if OR would judge belief in God Reasonable since OR would be God or at least God-like in respect of being all-knowing. [End Page 1250] II The other respect in which the question "is belief in God reasonable?" is ambiguous (in this first of the two areas ambiguity noted at the...

Against Evidential Minimalism

AbstractEvidence is often taken to be “normative” for doxastic agents. What accounts for the normativity of evidence? According to the view that I'll call “evidential minimalism”, there is a close connection between strong evidence for the truth of p and a normative reason to believe p: evidence is eitheritselfa normative reason for belief, or evidence gives rise to such a reason when certain other minimal conditions are met. In this paper, I argue against evidential minimalism. I will argue that there are cases where: (i) an individual S possesses strong evidence E for the truth of p at time t, (ii) all other minimal conditions for the normativity of E are met at t, (iii) S doesn't believe p at t, yet (iv) S isn't open to any form of criticism on account of (i)–(iii) at t. I will then formulate a plausible linking claim connecting openness to criticism and the existence of normative reasons for belief. The minimalist can either accept or reject this linking claim. I will argue that, either way, the minimalist view falters.